Preparation of Dry‐Cured Meat With Ham‐Like Flavor With Exogenous Lipase and Protease

This study investigated the use of exogenous lipase and protease to produce dry‐cured meat with ham‐like flavor. The results showed that the best formula was injection of 11.5 × 10 3 U/kg protease and 6.0 × 10 3 U/kg lipase after salting and holding for 110 days. The best product has similar color ( L ∗ , 42.0; a ∗ , 11.3; b ∗ , 11.2), proteolysis index (PI) (28.7%), and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARSs) (1.17 mg MA/kg) with Xuanwei ham from the Xuanwei local market ( p > 0.05), and lower values of total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB‐N) (49.9 mg/100 g) compared to the Xuanwei hams ( p < 0.05). Moreover, the best product contained higher levels of specific key flavor compounds compared to the Xuanwei hams, and its most abundant volatile compounds (hexanal, amyl alcohol, hexanol, and 2‐heptanone) had similar rates (2.7:1:2.6:10.4) to the Xuanwei ham from the Xuanwei local market (3.2:1:2.8:9.4). Furthermore, the best product has similar values of total free amino acids (FAAs) (103.2 mg/100 g) and bitter amino acids (45.6 mg/100 g) to the Xuanwei hams, and its values of sweet amino acids and umami amino acids were similar to Xuanwei hams from the Xuanwei local market and Teh‐Ho Canned Food Company, respectively ( p > 0.05). It demonstrated that the addition of exogenous enzymes was an effective way of producing dry‐cured meat with ham‐like flavor in a relatively short period.